Rudbeckia
by KivaEmber
Summary: AU. A Shinigami is left with the impossible task of convincing a ten-year-old L to use his Death Note.
1. 000: Prologue

**Title: **Rudbeckia

**Rating: **T

**Pairing: **None

**Disclaimer: **Me no oooooown 'cept my shinigami.

**Summary: **AU. L supposed that it could be an imaginary friend, though it didn't explain the notebook with the ability to kill people with a swish of a pen.

**A/N: **Inspiration is the cause of this.

During my late night ponderings over different things (i.e. sugar, lawyers, homosexuals and how many people you can stick into a phone box), I wondered over the OCs in the death Note fandom. Then tried to figure out how many of them were Mary-sues and how many were Shinigami.

Then I had a splendid idea to have an AU Death Note fanfic where L picks up a DN before the original timeline with an OC shinigami! It's my attempt at writing a believable OC without there being the messy web of romance or godly super powered females thrown into the mix.

Criticism is very welcome! If my OC Shinigami shows signs of being too unbelievable, tell me so I can adapt!

This chapter is short, I know, but this is just a prologue. The next chapter will be at least 2'500 words…but that's if I get a positive feedback XD Enjoy!

(P.S. The title is a plant representing Justice :D )

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"_I've made my bed, and now I've gotta weasel out of it."_

_-- Bart, The Simpsons_

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**CHAPTER 000: PROLOGUE**

_Thump thump_

"Hn…you lose again."

Fen's canine skull covered head lolled to the side lazily, the androgynous Shinigami unable to muster enough energy to fully turn to observe his two companions' game. "What're ya bettin' anyway?" He rumbled, voice husky and muffled from beneath the unmoving mandible of his skull.

Clawed hand raised high, the mummy-esque Shinigami paused. "Nuthin'…" He threw the dice down anyway.

With a contemptuous snort, Fen's head swivelled back round to the frothing depths of the pool, casually picking out a human amongst the seething masses. His life span had waned down to only a mere ten years, the Shinigami having lost track of time in his despondent mood of ennui inspired depression.

Scratching out the human's name in uncertain English (damn humans with their multitude of languages), Fen uncoiled his long tail from its position round his splayed feet, accidentally-on-purpose knocking over his two companions' board where their game was held.

The two squawked, leaping back from the lithe appendage. "Fen, you clumsy idiot!" The mummy-esque Shinigami smacked the beast like Shinigami round the head, clawed hand impacting the soft flesh under the spiky mane and dishevelled black feathers.

It was that rash action that started everything.

Fen grunted again, grip slackening on his precious Death Note and half turning to snarl at the other Shinigami. But angry words were halted when he felt that a certain something was missing from his grip, and immediately whirled back round to watch, with horrified golden eyes, his Death Note bouncing off the edge of the pool and into its depths.

The silence that usually smothered the Shinigami World took on an awkward tint.

"Oops."

**X.x.X**

L had an IQ well over 200.

He was also logical, and did not understand why some of the children his age within the orphanage believed in fictional characters such as the tooth fairy, or Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny. It was obvious that they were the by products of bedtime stories, and yet, children still thought that they were real.

It simply baffled him.

He nibbled on his cookie, curled up comfortably against the tree as other children raced by playing some form of tag. Mr. Whammy told him that he could take this nice day to socialize as a break from his studies, but the young prodigy saw no need to do so with those who could not understand his great intellect. He was quite content being by himself with only his candy and Mr. Whammy to keep him company.

Stuffing the rest of the baked good into his mouth, the ten year old glanced up at the clear blue sky through the canopy of the tree's leaves.

And was immediately hit on the head by some object.

As he blinked the stars from his eyes, he wondered if the teens playing football kicked the ball at him again. Rubbing the sore spot he concluded that no, it wasn't, as it didn't feel like a leather bound ball of pressurized air. He glanced down, wide eyes blinking at the offending object lying at his feet.

A black book.

Did someone throw it at him? Glancing round, there was no gaggle of giggling children, or a smirking teen. He looked up again, pale fingers dragging through wild ebony tresses around the spot where the book collided with his head. Where did it come from?

Curiously, he picked up the innocuous item, blinking at the strange tingling feeling that rushed from his fingertips throughout his whole body. He shook it off, perturbed by the illogical series of events and glanced at the scrawled title on the book's front, recognizing it from his many lessons as Katakana, a writing form from the Japanese language.

_Death Note_

Curiosity growing, he opened it gingerly using only his forefinger and thumb and swept his wide eyes over the first page. His brows furrowed at the spidery list of languages, all translated into the same sentence: _'This Death Note belongs to the Shinigami Fen, any human, on the off chance that they may pick this up, who writes in this book, may kill whoever they wish.'_

Shinigami? A Japanese creature, a God of Death…was this a joke? Turning the page, he took note of exactly twelve names, written in the same spidery writing of the sentence on the first page. Though there was a ninety nine per cent chance that this was a complete joke and nothing would happen if he _did_ write someone's name; on the one per cent chance that it was real, he would be classified as a murderer, and he would not take that chance.

Maybe he should hand it in to Mr. Wammy. Nodding to himself, the young prodigy stood, hunched over and clutching the black notebook to his chest as he shuffled back into the orphanage for gifted orphans.

But first, he needed to see if these people whose names were written in here were actually dead.

**X.x.X**

Ten miles away, walking down a dirt track through a field full of sheep, Fen grunted as he felt a tug on his being. Someone had claimed ownership of his Death Note.

"Goddammit."

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**A/N: **That's the prologue, tell me what ya think and look out for the first chappie!

Man, I can't wait for the final chappie though… ¬.¬ No spoilers…hehehehe…


	2. 001: First Impressions

**Title: **Rudbeckia

**Rating: **T

**Pairing: **None

**Disclaimer: **Nope. I only own my character Fen and the plot

**Summary: **AU. L supposed that it could be an imaginary friend, though it didn't explain the notebook with the ability to kill people with a swish of a pen.

**A/N: **I'm surprised people liked this, considering the general dislike for OCs as they had a nasty habit of changing into Mary Sues or Gary Stus if you're not careful. Thanks for reviewing people! And here's the first chapter of Rudbeckia!

Before that though, L's characterization in this will be different to canon!L's, as he's a ten year old child in this. Though he's still introverted and socially retarded, there will be differences, subtle ones mind you, but differences all the same. I'm trying to keep L's reaction to meeting a Shinigami (at the dead of night ¬.¬) realistic and what have you, and I'm trying to convey Fen's character too.

Not sure if I'm succeeding D:

And to answer a question from a reviewer, the story won't be focused entirely on L's childhood, it'll actually progress throughout his teenage years and how he was able to create his reputation of being the top detective in the world. So it'll be a loooooong story. Very long.

Huge.

Everyone thank Tensei-chan for looking over this as my usual beta went on a trip!

Criticism welcome!

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"_It's amazing how they always solve the mystery before they run out of pages."_

_-- Marge, The Simpsons_

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**CHAPTER 001: FIRST IMPRESSIONS**

Night time in the human world was beautiful.

In the Shinigami world, the realm was in a perpetual state twilight, the sky a broken smog of grey, ebony, navy, and sometimes a streak of silver blending in with the jagged horizon that was as equally depressing as the sky. But here, in the human world, the sky was a navy blue, or inky darkness patterned with twinkling silver stars. The air was…was _alive_ and not at all stale and rotting like the Shinigami World.

Ah…what was it the Spanish for it…Heuco Mundo?

Heh. That suited it. Hollow World indeed.

But Fen digressed.

The human world, from what he had gathered from personal experience, (granted, this 'personal experience' is from trekking highways and countless fields of creatures called 'sheep' – that scared the _crap_ out of him, they were the very epitome of creepiness) was so _interesting_. Even if it smelt bad and the humans' stupid little inventions were loud and aggravating, there was something different around each corner, unlike the Shinigami World where you could travel north, south, east, west for miles and still see the same catatonic Shinigami and serrated stalagmites wherever you go.

To conclude his internal monologue in an easy sentence; the human world pwned the Shinigami World.

Fen heaved a sigh, the blades of grass under his three toed feet oddly pleasant as his glowing gold eyes smouldering in his skull mask's sockets surveyed his surroundings. The tugging was rather insistent now, coming from the rather grandiose building across of the impressive lawn. The sign near the heavily surveillance gates called it _Wammy's House – Orphanage for Gifted Children_, something that made the Shinigami's heart sink with despair.

A _child_ had his precious killing tool. A stupid, impressionable, innocent _child_! He won't have to suffer through wailing and irritating questions for more then a few months, he'll have to suffer through it for _years_!

What was that noise? Oh, it was his tortured soul screaming as it did a suicide leap into the black hole that was once his heart.

Ambling across the lawn, Fen decided to forgo the front door and embedded his claws into the outside wall, gouging out foot holds as he scaled the red bricked wall up to the highest window with the light still on. Hell, if the brat was still up, he might as well scare the shit out of it for kicks. Maybe make it scream and laugh at it.

Grunting, Fen allowed a hollow snicker to overlap the chirp of crickets in the otherwise silent night; time to play with this brat who had the audacity to claim a Shinigami's Death Note.

_Let the fun begin_. Fen thought maliciously as he phased through the closed window and into the brat's room.

**X.x.X**

L was intrigued.

It seemed that through an extensive search, the last three names were recorded as dead from the same thing. The last person written in the 'Death Note', Paul Johnson, died a mere ten hours ago of a heart attack, twenty minutes before he picked up this notebook. No one knew why; as he was a perfectly healthy, thirty three year old male, but it was written off as purely natural.

The second last name, Francois Gould, died twenty six years ago of the same thing, heart attack. Except she was some low classed prostitute who didn't make it past twenty so the only recordings she had was her birth certificate, a police record and her death certificate. So her death was regarded as either overdose or natural heart failure from her unsavoury lifestyle.

The third last name, Adolf Schwarz, was tricky to get, as his death was just before the turning of the twentieth century. Deaths weren't recorded electronically then, but the man was an important official of some sort in Germany, so his name was updated in the database once storing Death Certificates on the computer was mandatory. He also died of a heart attack at age fifty nine, completely natural.

He presumed that the names before those three happened too far back to be found on the Internet or government files, or even on paper. It seemed that from the bottom up, the further back in time the people's deaths were. This increased the Death Note's authenticity by seven per cent, but it could've been some strange heirloom passed through a family, or between friends of certain people dying of heart attacks.

People are strange creatures, so it was plausible.

Sighing, L turned his wide eyes to the digital clock on his desk, put there solely to spruce up his almost sterile room. The red digits proudly proclaimed it to be past 2am in the morning, Tuesday, slowly ticking towards another completely boring, mundane day. He would hold onto the Death Note for a little while longer, just to try and crack the puzzle.

He liked solving puzzles, and this seemed like a good challenge.

The easy option would be to try it out, but L had no place to judge someone to death for the sake of proving if something was real or not. He will try to find out the other names, or perhaps wait for this 'Shinigami' to reclaim its lost item.

The latter made the young prodigy shudder. Shinigami weren't real, and L did not believe in the paranormal, but the illogical part of L's mind almost whimpered in fear of being confronted by an angry God of _Death_ searching for its lost killing tool. He immediately shook that foolish image from his mind, if there was an explanation for what the books does, aimed at humans and in multiple languages so people could understand, then there was an off chance that humans may use it and are _expected_ to use it.

What is he thinking?! This isn't real! He should just write a name an-

L abruptly leapt from his awkward seating position and away from the innocent looking notebook, obsidian eyes wider then normal. There was something off about the book, and if he was willing to think irrationally, it almost seemed like it was calling out to him with the siren song of curiosity to just…just _try it out_.

All he'd had to do was write a name, right?

But…on the eight per cent chance it worked, he'd be a murderer…and if he turned himself in, the police wouldn't believe a kid, genius though he may be, confessing to the crime via a Death God's notebook. He'd be sent to a mental institute!

Maybe…he should give it to Mr. Wammy after all…

"What? You haven't written in it yet?" A husky, hollow voice grumbled in lazy Japanese directly behind him, disappointment evident.

L froze up, his breath catching in his throat. It couldn't be…no. No, his imagination was fabricating the voice! If he turned round, there will be nothing there! He always did have a vivid imagination, and his distaste for the supernatural was the cause of his nightmares when he was younger, all about monsters and the like. Succumbing to that childishness once more was degrading to his superior intellect.

"Hey? Ya deaf, brat?" Irritation was clear in that voice, muffled as it was, and there was a steady thump of heavy, _clawed_, footsteps dragging closer, a gently swish of some form of appendage brushing against his fluffy carpet. "Or are ya too scared t' turn round?" A mocking tone, the figment of his imagination's shadow looming over him threateningly.

L swallowed, slowly pivoting on his heel and straightening from his protective slouch. He was met with an almost anorexic looking abdomen, thin layer of silvery fur softening the sharp curves of sinewy muscles, and dragged his wider the usual obsidian eyes to meet hellish gold eyes burning in the eyes sockets of a great skull mask, wild mane of silver hued hair surrounding the mask and adorned with bedraggled black feathers.

It looked like some odd amalgamation of an anorexic werewolf, a unisex shaman and a bipedal lizard.

"What's wrong?" L knew that under the skull mask (absently, the prodigy noted it was some form of canine, a wolf perhaps) this _creature_ was grinning maliciously at him, golden eyes alight with glee. "Cat got ya tongue, brat?" The demon's tail swished to the side as it bent over its impressive eight foot tall form, hellish eyes meeting the trembling child's with vindictive pleasure. "You have somethin' that belongs t' me, _Lawliet_."

L swallowed down the reflexive surprised gasp and slouched over once more, steeling his obsidian eyes. He could not be intimidated. If this creature wished to kill him, it would've done so already instead of confronting him.

_Unless it likes to play with its victims…_

"If it is a black notebook labelled 'Death Note'," L began in accented Japanese, keen eyes logging away the subtle shifts in glowing gold eyes. "Then it is your own fault for dropping it."

The young prodigy held his breath as the demon stared at him, before a low wheezing noise echoed in its skull mask. Warily, L blinked owlishly back as the creature straightened up to throw back its head, howling in wild mirth with a grating, annoying laugh.

What was so funny?

"Gyahahahahahahaaaa! Well, well, well, _Brat_." The creature wiggled its tail in a pleased manner, aura changing from malevolence to languid amusement. "Here I was, gonna peg ya as some snot nosed urchin who'd bore the hell outta me. But now I see…" It wheezed out that grating laugh once more. "Heheheheh…I think this is gonna be interestin'."

"Interesting? Don't you wish to reclaim your Death Note?" L asked curiously, suspicious of this creature's devil-may-care attitude.

"Ya kiddin'?" The demon snorted, brushing past the young human to hover over the open notebook. "Th' Shinigami world is a drag. I don' wanna return there immediately, might as well take a vacation fer a month or two…" It glanced over its shoulder, golden eyes glittering in a way that showed it was grinning under its mask. "As far as I'm concerned, ya can keep th' damn thing s'long as ya keep me entertained."

L gnawed on his thumb, looking between the Death Note and the amused creature with anxiety. "So it is authentic? It can actually _kill_ people with just a name?"

"And a face." The demon added, voice hushed, picking the notebook up between clawed fingers and holding it out to the human. "I'm guessin' there's a person that ya want dead, right? Ya can kill 'im in any way tha' ya want if ya detail th' death after writin' th' name within 6 minutes an' forty seconds…"

Disgusted, L stepped away from the creature and shook his head violently, teeth clamping down on his thumb hard enough to break the skin. The tang of blood made the uneasiness in his stomach curdle nauseously. "I am not a murderer." He muttered agitatedly. "I wish to become a detective and becoming a murderer will hinder that wish."

"Really now?" With a snort, the demon dropped the notebook back onto the human's desk. "Well, I can wait fer a while. Shinigami have perfected patience after all." L knew it was grinning at him. "Jus' know that it's always there fer ya t' write in."

"It is too bad, then, that I will never use it." L retorted, turning stiffly from the grinning demon and shuffling towards his bed. He crawled atop of it, hugging one of the many fluffy pillows as he glanced cautiously at the creature.

L was a private person. Even at his young age of ten years, he was paranoid and perfected the art of holding his secrets close; which was why he felt his nerves begin to fray under the intense scrutiny of this hellish demon. "Is there something else? If not, could you please leave?" The human pressed, shrinking back against his pillows.

The creature chuckled again. "Nah. S'long as ya hold th' Death Note, I'll follow ya until th' day you die…" The creature paused. "Oh. I jus' remembered! I didn' introduce myself, did I? How rude, eheheh…"

"You are Fen, correct?" L hazarded, hugging the pillow he was clutching tighter. "The God of Death?"

"Uh huh." The God of Death, or rather, _Fen_, bobbed its head and squatted beside the desk, shifting its position until it was comfortable.

L paused before asking almost hesitantly. "How…how did you know my name?"

"Magic." It scoffed gruffly before shaking its head. "Nah. We Shinigami have our eyes t' thank fer that. We can see a human's name an' lifespan with our eyes…" Fen jerked its head slightly, as if it wanted to add more, but fell silent instead, settling for staring shamelessly at the new owner of his Death Note.

L, not to be outdone where unblinking staring was involved, stared right back with his disturbing wide eyes. He mixed the information he had gathered in his head, mulling over the possibilities he had with the power of a Death God. He finally lied down in his puffy nest of pillows, not breaking eye contact with the Shinigami. "And is there any way that a human in possession of a Death Note will be able to gain the power of a Shinigami's eyes?"

Fen suddenly looked gleeful. "Yeah! We can swap eyes. It's painless and'll only take a few seconds." Its tail, coiled tightly round its splayed claws, betrayed its amusement with a series of sporadic twitches. "An' weighin' th' pros an' cons, the price fer 'em ain't half bad."

"Don't tell me." L suddenly cut in, allowing his eyes to close and pressed his face against the cool fabric of his pillow. "I have no inclination of participating in the deal. I was simply curious." Maybe if he fell asleep, and woke up, all this madness would be behind him.

Wishful thinking. But he didn't care.

"Heh. Yeah, right. Curious." The Shinigami shifted its position once more before falling silent, not saying another word.

Unsurprisingly, L didn't fall asleep at all that night.

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**A/N: **There we go, much longer then the prologue by at least 1000 words (dances). Things really kick off next chapter!

Oh, what'll really help is if you put in your review on what kind of character Fen strikes you as, need to see if I portrayed him alright…and I hope you enjoyed and that everything was in character! Stay tuned for the second chapter!

**NEXT CHAPTER: SHADOW**

Raito: I can't believe I'm not in this story!

L: I cannot believe I am a child.

Fen: An' I can't believe tha' it's not butter. Hell yes, I scared th' crap outta ya, Lawliet XD

L: (Stares) At least I am a canon character.

Fen: …Touché.

Raito: (Huffs) This is going to be my only role in this story, isn't it? Ah well, it's a stupid story anyway. Next chapter is Shadow! More L and that poser, Fen…

Fen: Aw, don' worry, pretty boy! I'm sure th' authoress will write a story centred on ya soon! A…_heated_ story, gyahahahaha…

Raito: I don't like that laugh.

L: We have wasted enough time. (Walks away)

Raito: Hey! (Follows L)

Fen: …They left me all alone. Oh well, now they won' hear my warnin' 'bout an LxRaito lemon th' authoress is writin'! Gyahahahaahahaha!

**KIVAEMBER OUT!**


	3. 002: Shadow

**Title: **Rudbeckia

**Rating: **T

**Pairing: **None

**Disclaimer: **Nope. I only own my character Fen and the plot

**Summary:** AU. A Shinigami is left with the impossible task of convincing a ten-year-old L to use his Death Note.

**A/N: **I've returned!

Now then, I haven't read Death Note: Another Note and only know that B has Shinigami eyes and A committed suicide. But I'm going to put B in anyway, he doesn't have an important role _yet_, but he will eventually. A, well, I don't know enough about A, so he's unfortunately going to be omitted from this. Sorry guys!

Well, I hope y'all enjoy this chappie!

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"_Law of Inverse Accuracy: The accuracy of a 'Good Guy' when operating any form of fire-arm increases as the difficulty of the shot increases. The accuracy of the 'Bad Guys' when operating fire-arms decreases when the difficulty of the shot decreases (also called the Stormtrooper Effect).  
_

_Example: A 'Good Guy' in a drunken stupor being held upside down from a moving vehicle will always hit, and several battalions of 'Bad Guys' firing on a 'Good Guy' standing alone in the middle of an open field will always miss.  
_

_First Corollary – The more 'Bad Guys' there are, the less likely they will hit anyone or do any real damage.  
_

_Second Corollary – Whenever a 'Good Guy' is faced with insurmountable odds, the 'Bad Guys' line up in neat rows, allowing the hero to take them all out with a single burst of automatic fire and then escape.  
_

_Third Corollary – Whenever a 'Good Guy' is actually hit by enemy fire, it is in a designated 'Good Guy Area', usually a flesh wound in the shoulder or arm, which restricts the 'Good Guy' from doing anything more strenuous than driving, firing weaponry, using melee weapons, operating heavy machinery, or doing complex martial arts manoeuvres."_

_-- The Forty Six Laws of Anime, Darrin Bright & Ryan Stellito_

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**CHAPTER 002: SHADOW**

Fen was bored.

Weeks had passed since he had met the oddity that was called L Lawliet, and not a single name had graced the lined pages under the ones he himself had written. The black notebook had been shoved under the ten year old's barely used mattress and possibly put out of mind, the prodigy going about his daily life as normal.

If he could, Fen would have written down the damnable brat's name down, but, as he was no longer the owner of the notebook, he could only wait until it was destroyed and released him from his duty to follow the brat, or that the human passed it onto someone more willing to use it.

Of course, the brat didn't know that little titbit of information. But Fen wasn't at an obligation to say anything about the rules of the Death Note to that boring child. If he wanted to know how it worked, then he had to at least kill _someone_. One person, and Fen would tell him one relevant rule.

What was that phrase humans used? _Quid pro quo_?

And what was _worse_, the brat actually had the audacity to _ignore _him! Him! A Shinigami! From the ghost stories he had heard in passing, Gods of Death were feared monsters from the Netherworld that demanded respect! Of course it wasn't true, Shinigami were about as important as dirt clods nowadays, but humans didn't know that!

Any and all fear L Lawliet had shown upon their first meeting had completely _vanished_ in the morning.

It was very vexing – if a little disturbing.

He had only been able to add enough years onto his lifespan to match that of an average human, if the brat held onto the book until then and passed it on to another human, then Fen would _die_. True, he wouldn't return to that Hellhole he unfortunately calls home, but he would _die_. Death for a Shinigami was the most terrifying thing in existence – they did not go to _Mu_, they did not go anywhere, their next step after their worthless existence was a smudge of obscurity.

Enough to entice interest, but not enough to actually make them explore the phenomenon.

His only consolation was that L Lawliet would die before his lifespan ran out.

Fen was broken out of his musing when another human passed by, the emancipated Shinigami turning its skull clad head to watch the curious human with smouldering gold eyes. L did not show any outward sign of noticing the Shinigami's sudden focal of interest, but did pause in the turning of his book for the briefest moment.

Fen turned his smouldering gold eyes back onto L as the human walked out of sight, the odd pair squirreled away in the far corner of Wammy House's library and thus unable to see the whole room due to the fact that an aisle dedicated to home cooking blocked any line of sight.

He smirked as the faint wisps of crimson numbers vanished, swishing his tail as a burst of anticipation sparked in his chest. The numbers were declining at a rapid pace, too rapid to be natural. The young girl that passed was going to die soon.

Fen's gaze turned contemplative, cocking his head to the side as the human he was unfortunately bound to follow turned another page. Should he…?

His lips, cold and chapped under his skull mask, curved into a wicked smile.

Nah. The kid could figure it out later.

Fen plucked up a strawberry from L's plate and, ignoring the glare sent in his direction (it wasn't like he could hurt him after all), unhinged his skull's jaw and popped the fruit through the opening, catching the sweet delicacy in his mouth and munching on it greedily.

Mmm. Juicy.

**X.x.X**

L was having a bad month.

Coincidently, this bad month began when a certain black notebook landed on his head one sunny afternoon. He had hoped, when the sun broke through the night of that fateful day and cast his room in a orangey glow, that the Shinigami still crouched beside his desk was just a twisted up version of an imaginary friend.

He had hidden the notebook, taking the old saying, 'Out of sight, out of mind' to heart, and hoping that the Shinigami would get bored of following around a ten year old human and return to its own realm, taking the notebook with it – if it was real of course. For all he knew, this could be the early stages of a mental disease like Schizophrenia.

L wasn't sure which thought was more depressing, developing a mental illness or being followed around by a God of Death for the rest of his life.

But for some reason, Fen did not leave; no matter how many times L ignored it, antagonized it, and allowed the creature to be swallowed up by crushing boredom. It simply complained, stole the strawberries off his shortcakes (which caused L to eat them first rather then saving them for later) and stared at passing individuals with a mockingly knowing look.

L had begun to suspect that the Shinigami simply _could not_ leave, which meant that L was damned to a lifetime of annoyance.

He thought about burning the notebook, just to get rid of the cursed object and wash his hands of the paranormal that had crashed into his life like a misguided atomic bomb. He liked logic. Shinigami and killer notebooks weren't logical. But, he couldn't take the risk. After all, from what little information Fen had given him about the 'rules', such as the Eyes, the cause of death having to be written within 6 minutes and 40 seconds and the default heart attack setting, for all L knew, there was a rule that protected the Death Note from being destroyed by mortal means.

After all, they kept Shinigami alive. It wouldn't do if a stray lighter or a shredding machine took away their lifeline.

L paused the flick of a page when his new shadow shifted, the paranormal creature following a passing girl with his eyes. This was rather normal, but what was different was when Fen made a soft hiss of happiness, golden eyes flaring.

Any suspicions about the Shinigami's behaviour, however, were immediately pushed to the back of his mind when it suddenly swung its skull masked head round, reaching out with thin clawed fingers and snatching up his strawberry, creaking open its skull mask and tossing the fruit inside.

L glared, annoyance bubbling up inside of him as he heard a soft munching noise, the skull's maw closing with a '_snap_' and hellish gold eyes twinkling maliciously at him.

"Wan' somethin', Brat?" Fen drawled in accented English, the Shinigami finding perverse pleasure in mangling the complex language for some reason. L guessed that the paranormal creature harboured a grudge towards it.

"That was my strawberry." L whispered quietly, not wanting to be overheard and deemed insane. He already got problems for his eerie intelligence, no need to give them more rocks to stone him with. "If you are hungry, you should go to the kitchen and not steal from me."

"Mebbe ya shouldn' ignore me then." Fen retorted mildly, uncoiling itself from its awkward crouch beside the ten year old and stretching to its full height before slumping forward again, tail swishing languidly through the air and knocking a few cookery books off the shelf. "I'm only bored. Jus' kill someone wit' th' notebook…an' I'll give ya somethin' good."

That was new. "What would you give me?"

Fen looked delighted. "Hows 'bout a deal, Brat? Ya kill one human, any human s'long as it causes interestin' reactions, an' I'll impart ya wit' one rule 'bout th' notebook. Any rule, useful or otherwise."

L frowned. A tempting offer. He would be able to find a loophole, a way out of this arrangement and finally be rid of the cursed object, or discover a way to destroy it without any misfortune befalling him, and it would cost him one human life.

Or several. L had a feeling Fen wouldn't reveal knowledge that he actually wanted without scraping up the body count a little.

"No deal." L said at last, snapping the book shut and lowering his legs to the floor, standing up slowly. "The cost is simply too high."

Fen slumped before perking up. "Aaah, you'll cave eventually, Brat. Everybody does."

"We'll see." L said neutrally.

A husky grating noise emitted from beneath the Shinigami's mask, something that L had learned to translate into laughter, or a rather twisted parody of one. "Mmmm…we will." The paranormal creature tossed its head, towards the direction where the girl had passed by a few minutes ago. "Though I didn' say wha' reason ya hadta kill someone wit' th' Death Note. Ya could use it t'…I dunno…_save_ someone, an' th' death'll still count."

L froze, obsidian eyes widening even more as he remembered the Shinigami's words: _'See yer name an' lifespan' _and immediately recoiled, eyes involuntarily snapping to where the girl had went.

"You…" He whispered, unable to finish.

Fen's eyes gleamed maliciously in reply, the being lifting itself into standing position and clacking the maw of its skull mask to accompany the grating laughter. "I ain't allowed t' tell." He teased, but the glee in his eyes said it all.

Someone was going to die.

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**A/N: **Now then, I thought and thought on how to make L use the Death Note, and make it seem plausible. He is a child at this point, so he is easy to influence, but not naïve enough to use a Death Note without thinking about the consequences.

Also, because he has a strong sense of Justice, I think that as a child, he would be inclined to save someone if he could do something about it before the harsh truth of reality taught him otherwise. So that is how I'm going to work this.

This will, by the way, end in Canon XP How, well, you'll just have to read and find out. Hyuk hyuk hyuk…

Hope y'all enjoyed!


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